Ukraine's FM: New ceasefire in Donbas may be announced in late December

Ukraine is ready to offer three new sites in the Joint Forces Operation zone for disengagement.

Photo from UNIAN

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko hopes a new, full and comprehensive, ceasefire in Donbas will be announced soon.

"The announcement [of a ceasefire] will be on December 20 or December 21. And we will see whether further progress is possible. We are doing this as follows. The Trilateral Contact Group is authorized by the [Normandy Four] leaders to provide this technical solution – when and since when the ceasefire shall be declared, and when the verification shall be carried out by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission," he told UNIAN in an exclusive interview.

Prystaiko added after that, the OSCE would need at least a day to get prepared since there should be enough crews at the sites who should be technically capable of verifying compliance with the conditions. The final agreed date is to be announced only after that.

"We planned closer to December 24. The leaders were more cautious and asked by late December, by 31st. In any case, there is enough time to do this," Prystaiko said.

In addition, Ukraine is ready to offer three new sites in the Joint Forces Operation zone for the disengagement of troops.

"We are preparing several alternatives. These sites will be considered and agreed upon within one of the Trilateral Contact Group's subgroups. We believe there should be disengagement in areas of humanitarian significance at this stage. This is a priority in these three or four, or how many sites we'll agree on," the minister said.

Prystaiko added the parties had agreed on a number of other decisions during the Normandy Four summit in Paris on December 9, including the "all for all" prisoner swap.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Prystaiko said Ukraine could return to the idea of deploying UN peacekeeping troops to the occupied areas of Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

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